Hero of Cartao 3. Hero's End

by Timothy Zahn

  Tories rose to his feet and started toward him. He'd taken perhaps three steps when Roshton lifted a hand and pointed east. And suddenly, the army was on the move, blasters at the ready, running toward the landing ship towering above the treetops. The last of the troopers was passing Roshton when Tories caught up with him. "What are you doing?" he demanded, catching the commander's arm. "This was supposed to be a rescue mission."

  "Out of my way, Jedi," Roshton snapped, shrugging off his arm. "Of course it's a rescue mission. It's a rescue of Lord Binalie's precious manufacturing plant."

  "But..."

  "No buts," Roshton cut him off, gesturing with his blaster. "This is our one chance to get into that landing ship and destroy the droid control matrix.

  You want to help, fine, we'd be glad to have you. If not, just get out of our way."

  Tories looked back at Binalie, still crouching beside his bush, his face rigid with anger and fear and frustration. "Go back to the estate," he called to the other. "I'll meet you there."

  Binalie's eyes flicked over Tories' shoulder toward the plant.

  "Go," Tories repeated.

  Binalie's expression still looked pinched, but he nodded. "All right."

  He slipped away through the trees, and Tories turned back to Roshton.

  "I'll come with you," he said, pulling out his lightsaber. "But we will talk about this later."

  "Sure," Roshton grunted. "Come on."

  They headed off after the soldiers, dodging between trees and around bushes. Occasionally Tories caught a glimpse of white armor ahead of them, but the clone troopers were traveling at least as fast as they were and had a fair head start on top of it. "So what's the plan?" he asked Roshton. "The new revised plan, I mean."

  "Laytron's got men up on the plant roof laying down fire," Roshton panted. 'The droids by the landing ship are currently trying to pick them off without damaging the plant. With luck, they should all have their backs to us when we hit them." Tories grimaced. And when they found their army in a crossfire, what would the Neimoidians controlling the droids do? Whatever they deemed necessary to defend themselves, including wrecking the Spaarti plant?

  Probably.

  It was up to Tories to make sure that didn't happen.

  "First elements have reached firing position," Roshton reported, pressing his headset tighter against his ear. "Following units are fanning out. If we're lucky, and they're not spotted-" He broke off, and Tories caught his breath as the volume of the firing ahead suddenly changed. 'They were,"

  Roshton growled.

  "All units: fire at will."

  He leaped ahead, picking up his pace. "Spotted?" Tories asked, catching up with him.

  "By one of the guards at the landing ramp," Roshton confirmed as weapons of a different pitch joined the sounds ahead. "But we've still got the advantage."

  They ran another fifty meters through the forest. And then, suddenly, they were there.

  Square in the middle of a pitched battle.

  Roshton ducked into the partial cover of a nearby tree, his blaster already blazing away against the enemy. Tories stopped beside a tree of his own, trying to get a quick sense of the action. Two AAT battle tanks, which had been facing the door into the plant, were trying to turn around to deal with this new threat, their maneuvering slow and awkward as they fought the tangle of underbrush and heavy fire from two directions. Advancing briskly toward Roshton's group of clone troopers were three ranks of super battle droids supported by a few D60 assault droids. The whole line was taking considerable damage, but was still coming.

  The tanks, Tories decided, were his first priority. "I'm going in," he called to Roshton over the noise, pointing toward the tanks. "Cover me."

  "Right," Roshton shouted back as Tories ignited his lightsaber.

  "All units: cover fire left!"

  The rain of fire from the clone trooper blasters abruptly changed focus, concentrating all their fury on the left flank of the advancing forces and blowing the droids on that side into a chaos of shards and rubble and smoke.

  Gathering his feet beneath him, Tories ducked under the friendly fire and dodged around the end of the disintegrating enemy line.

  The droids in the AATs saw him coming, of course. Even as their primary laser cannon began chewing up the landscape along the right flank of the Republic forces, the short-range defensive blasters on either side of the main air-cooling intake began firing at him. Tories' lightsaber flashed in answer, deflecting the bolts away or bouncing them into the backs of the advancing droids whenever he could manage it.

  He reached the nearest AAT and jumped up onto the front. Positioning himself in front of the air intake where he was out of reach of both defensive blasters, he stabbed his lightsaber downward through the heavy armor into the forward repulsor disk. The vehicle pitched forward, its nose slamming into the ground like a quadruped that had had both front legs kicked out from under it.

  Tories leaped straight up as it dug itself half a meter into the dirt, landing just in front of the top hatch, and with three quick slashes sliced off the primary laser cannon and the two side-mounted secondary laser guns.

  The second AAT had abandoned its attack on the clone troopers and had swung to this new threat. For a moment Tories stayed where he was, balancing on the now badly sloped top of the grounded battle tank as he deflected a couple of shots from the second tank's defensive blasters. One of the bolts went straight back down the blaster's muzzle, eliciting a burping sort of explosion from the weapon. Taking advantage of the momentary chaos inside the tank, Tories stretched out to the Force and made a giant leap across to the second tank, dealing with its primary and secondary lasers as he had with the first. Leaning over the hatch, he swung his lightsaber one more time, cutting off the vehicle's command receiver antennas.

  A droideka appeared from around the landing ramp, bouncing a lit tle as it rolled across the uneven ground. Stretching out to the Force, Tories lifted one of the two secondary laser guns he'd cutoff the first AAT and sent it flying into the center of the wheel shape. There was a screech of stressed metal, and the droideka came to an abrupt halt. For another second it held position, its micro-repulsors fighting to keep it balanced.

  Then, something inside it failed, and it toppled ignomin-iously over onto its side.

  A stutter of multiple blaster fire sliced through the air over Tories'

  head. He ducked reflexively, turning to see a group of super battle droids disintegrating behind him. The friendly fire was coming from above, he saw, and he looked up to see a group of clone troopers firing from the edge of the Spaarti roof. He waved his thanks; in response, one of them jabbed a hand toward the landing ship base.

  Tories shifted his eyes that direction. Another battle tank was lumbering down the ramp, clearly intent on joining the battle. He gave a quick acknowledging wave to the rooftop snipers, then jumped off the crippled vehicle he was still standing on and began to weave his way through the chaos toward the landing ship. If he could slip up onto the ramp beneath the tank, he might be able to take out its repulsorlift coils and disable it on the spot.

  "Jedi!"

  Tories paused, turning as the faint shout came to him over the noise of the battle. The advancing droids were closing on the Republic forces, considerably fewer now than had started, but still coming. The clone troopers didn't seem to need his help; but there'd been a definite note of urgency in that call.

  "Jedi!"

  This time he was able to get the direction of the shout, and he looked over to where Roshton was standing beside his tree. The commander was looking back at him, beckoning frantically toward himself. Frowning, Tories changed direction, lightsaber blazing as he again skirted the droid attack line to the relative safety of the trees. "What is it?" he called as he came within shouting distance of Roshton.

  "Didn't you hear me?" Roshton shouted back. 'The Jedi!"

  "What about me?" Tories demanded, thoroughly confused now.

  "Not you." Roshton
jabbed a finger skyward. "The Jedi.

  "The Jedi have come."

  "The Jedi?" Doriana demanded.

  "You got it," Lieutenant Laytron said, a mixture of surprise, hope, and relief in his voice as he peered into the eastern sky.

  "A whole assault transport full of them, the message said, heading in to help. We've got orders to pull back and give them room."

  "But that's impossible," Doriana objected, watching the other's face carefully. "Where could they have come from?"

  But if there was any doubt at all in Laytron's mind, none of it reached his face or voice. "I don't know, and I don't care," the younger man declared.

  "All units: pull back. Where?" He tilted his head upward. "Got it," he confirmed, pointing to the sky. Doriana followed the direction of his finger.

  There, in the distance, he could see a dark speck moving swiftly toward them.

  "Hustle on that pull-back," Laytron ordered. 'They're on their way."

  He grinned tightly at Doriana. "Now we're going to see some seri ous work."

  Doriana didn't answer. On the near edge of the rooftop the clone troopers had made it back to their ascent lines and were sliding back down them toward the waiting landspeeders. The approaching air vehicle was growing steadily larger, and he could see now that it was indeed a Republic assault transport.

  And as it grew closer, it opened fire.

  Laytron inhaled sharply. "What are they doing?" he breathed.

  "They're..."

  "Aren't they firing on the landing ship?" Doriana asked.

  "They're firing on the plant," Laytron snapped, pulling his headset voice pickup closer to his mouth. "Republic transport, cease firing on the plant.

  Repeat, cease firing on the plant!"

  The only response was an intensification of the transport's fire, alternating now between the plant and the enemy STAPs swarming to engage it.

  For a long moment, the Republic and Separatist forces traded fire as the assault transport continued racing forward.

  Then, without warning, the vehicle suddenly dipped off its approach.

  Doriana held his breath as the STAR attack was joined by blaster and laser bolts from the Separatist ground forces encircling the plant. The transport dipped even further...

  And as Laytron reeled off a string of helpless curses, Doriana watched as it plunged straight through the plant's roof.

  For what seemed like a small eternity, nothing happened. Then, with a horrible series of muffled explosions, whole sections of the roof blew skyward, scattering fragments all around like small erupting volcanoes. The building's walls followed, bulging and cracking and finally shattering into mudslides of rubble. Another, louder explosion echoed across the landscape, and through the roiling smoke and debris Doriana caught a glimpse of a fireball burning into the sky from the western side of the plant.

  "They've stopped," Laytron said dully.

  "What?" Doriana asked.

  The lieutenant pointed wearily across the lawn. "The droids," he said.

  "They've frozen up. That last blast must have taken out the landing ship and control matrix."

  "I see," Doriana said slowly. "Do we count this as a victory?"

  Laytron snorted. "The Jedi might," he said bitterly. "Who knows how they think? But the rest of us certainly won't."

  "To save the world," Doriana murmured the old cynic's saying, "we had to destroy it.'"

  "That's about it." Laytron shook his head tiredly. "Come on. Let's go find Commander Roshton."

  Lord Binalie said very little as the three of them walked across the littered floor, their boots crunching through the remains of what had once been Spaarti Creations. Corf, walking at his father's side, was even quieter.

  "I don't know what to say," Tories said softly as they came to a halt beside a mixed group of Cranscoc and human bodies. "Except that I'm very sorry."

  "Of course you are," Binalie said, his voice under rigid control. "You're sorry, Commander Roshton is sorry, Master Doriana is sorry. I'm sure the entire Jedi Council would be sorry, too, if they would pause long enough in their search for someone to blame for their part in this."

  He turned dead eyes on Tories. "What good is any of it?"

  Tories shook his head. "None," he conceded. "I don't suppose there's any chance...?"

  "That we can rebuild? With nearly all the twillers dead?" Binalie shook his head. "No. Not for another generation at least. And then only if we can get the Cranscoc to trust us again."

  He turned away. "I certainly wouldn't if I were them. Trusting the word of a human is a stupid thing to do."

  Tories winced. "I'm sorry," was all he could think of to say.

  "I'm sure we'll see you later, Master Tories," Binalie said, not turning back around.

  It was a dismissal. "Yes, of course," Tories said. "Good-bye, Lord Binalie. Good-bye, Corf."

  Neither of them replied. With a sigh, Tories turned and trudged toward the broken wall where he and the others had come through into the ruined plant, his heart feeling like a lump of blackened and twisted hull metal within him. So, that was that. Despite all his efforts - despite even the efforts of the Republic and Separatist forces, for that matter-Spaarti Creations was gone. Destroyed by carelessness, stupidity, and arrogance.

  The carelessness, stupidity, and arrogance of the Jedi.

  He closed his eyes briefly against the depth of sadness washing through his soul. Losing the plant was bad enough, but for himself Tories had lost something far more valuable. Binalie was very clearly blaming him personally for the Jedi intrusion, despite the fact that he had had nothing to do with it. And while civility and politeness might eventually come back to their relationship, the trust and friendship that had once been there would probably never return.

  And Corf, who had once looked on the old Jedi Guardian with the respect and awe usually accorded to the greatest of heroes, now hated him. And would probably continue to do so for the rest of his life.

  He reached what was left of the wall and picked his way over the rubble, an edge of anger stirring through the well of sadness. The Jedi Council could claim as loudly as it wanted that it knew nothing about what had happened here today. But there had been Jedi robes and broken lightsabers among the assault transport's wreckage-Tories had seen them with his own eyes. Someone on Coruscant knew where those Jedi had come from, and who exactly had sent them.

  One way or another, Jedi Guardian Jafer Tories was going to track that person down.

  The hooded face of Darth Sidious blinked into view above Doriana's holoprojector. "Report."

  "The operation has been successful, my lord," Doriana said. "The Spaarti Creations plant has been destroyed."

  "And the Jedi?"

  "As far as the public is concerned, the blame rests entirely on their shoulders," Doriana said.

  "Excellent," Sidious said with satisfaction. "Has anyone expressed interest in examining the assault transport?"

  "Commander Roshton suggested it should be done," Doriana said. "But it was a half-hearted remark, focused mainly on seeing whether they could identify who had been aboard from the designs of the various lightsabers in the wreckage."

  "Encourage him to continue along that line," Sidious ordered. "By the time he discovers that such an examination is a dead-end, all evidence of the transport's remote-control system will have vanished into the scrap recyclers.

  " He smiled thinly. "One of the many small advantages of dealing with Jedi, Master Doriana. With a few small props-a robe, a lightsaber, an unrecognizable body-you can easily create the illusion of a fallen hero."

  "Indeed, my lord," Doriana agreed. "I presume the remote operator himself will be leaving Cartao soon?"

  "He is already gone." There was a pause, and Doriana had the sense of those unseen eyes probing his face. "You still disapprove of this operation, don't you?"

  "I don't disapprove, my lord," Doriana hastened to assure him. "But I am still puzzled. Why deliberately destroy Spaarti? It could be of
immense service to the Separatists. Why not keep it intact for experimentation and manufacture?"

  "Because by its very nature it is indefensible," Sidious told him. 'The Republic might instead gain hold of it and could utilize it with equal devastation against us."

  He shook his head. "No, Master Doriana. With a wild card of this potential, it's far better to take it off the table entirely." He smiled again. "Especially when other long-term advantages can be squeezed from it."

  "That part was most definitely a success," Doriana agreed, nodding. "I don't think Jedi are going to be very welcome on Cartao for a long time to come. Certainly not if Lord Binalie has anything to say about it. Even Tories, who had become something of a hero among the people in all this, is pretty well finished."

  "And as the economic ripples of Spaarti's destruction spread through that region, so will that attitude," Sidious said. 'The destruction of the Jedi will be only half a victory if the people of the galaxy mourn their loss.

  Thanks to your work there today, few in Prackla Sector will shed a even tear at their passing."

  "Absolutely," Doriana said, nodding. "Have you further orders, my lord?"

  "No," Sidious said. "Stay long enough to clean up any final details, then you may report back to your post on Coruscant." The other's head tilted slightly. "One other matter. The reports I saw indicated that the clone cylinders created during the Republic's time in the plant were destroyed in the attack. Is that true?"

  "No, my lord," Doriana said. "They were stored in one of the Outlinks several kilometers away from the main complex and made it through undamaged.

  Supreme Chancellor Palpatine has instructed me to transport them secretly to an old underground fortress on Wayland that he recently reactivated."

  "Really," Sidious said thoughtfully. "How many are there?"

  "Several thousand." Doriana hesitated. "If you'd like, I could arrange for them to be lost."

  Sidious pursed his lips in thought, and Doriana held his breath. It would be easy enough for him to sabotage the transport of the cylinders in transit, of course, or even before they left Cartao. The problem was that with so few people in on the secret, that kind of action would open him up to a dangerously high risk of discovery. Still, if Sidious wanted it done...